Early Sunday morning a young Egyptian scaled 13 floors of the apartment building housing the Israeli embassy in Cairo and took down the Israeli flag. He's a national hero already

A 23-year-old Egyptian named Ahmed Shahat has overnight become a national sensation, especially among the youth, after scaling to the top of the 13-storey apartment building housing the Israeli embassy to bring down the Israeli flag. This feat of audacity took place around 2am Sunday morning.

Shahat, originally from Sharqiya governorate, is now known as the “Egyptian Spiderman.” He climbed onto the building next to the Israeli embassy when the military police patrols were changing shifts and then jumped onto the 13-story Israeli embassy building. When Shahat reached the Israeli embassy floor he removed the Israeli flag from the balcony and replaced it with an Egyptian flag he was wearing on his back.

The security forces urged him to come down, while the protesters urged him to complete his mission, despite fears for his life. In a quick interview with Al Jazeera Mubashar Misr, Shahat said that while he was climbing he saw an army officer standing at a window on the 8th floor. Shahat gave a thumb up to the officer, who, accoring to Shahat gave him the same sign in return.

On his way down one of neighbours opened his balcony and let him in to rest and to use the elevator to get the rest of the way down. When he came out of the building he was given a hero's welcome by the thousands protesters sitting in before the embassy building, who carried him on their shoulders, chanting anti-Isreali slogans.

Shahat is now a hero in Egypt, especially among young Egyptians who, in no time, made him Facebook Fan pages and special hashtags in Twitter, like #Flagman.

Thousands of Egyptian protesters have been demonstrating at the Israeli embassy since the attack on Egyptian security forces last Thursday, demanding the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and proper reactions from the government.

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samoura

22-06-2012 12:25am

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i adore EGYPT

I'm really proud I belonged to our beloved Egypt

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samoura

22-06-2012 12:24am

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i adore EGYPT

I'm really proud I belonged to our beloved Egypt

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mustafa

28-08-2011 11:50am

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replace isreal zionist flag

justice for egyptians and palestinians
may allah reward who stands for oppressed people and show real support
we have many munafiqs in our religion
who are co-operating with zionist state
we muslims should remove them as we did with mubarak saddam zian uddin and ghaddafi

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luay

22-08-2011 08:52pm

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flagman

everyone in Egypt and the rest of the world listened to our protesting voice through flagman , thanks to him .

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boris

22-08-2011 06:26pm

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immaturity vs. maturity

"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."
(W. Stekel, Austrian psychologist)

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Mo

22-08-2011 01:41pm

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Fanatic nationalism

No one, not even the amazing flagman would reasonably want escalations with our neighbor to the east, but they just can't help themselves to these crazy pseudo-courageous and reckless antics that play quite well on public emotions while silencing rational thought about the future of Egypt's foreign relations.
Besides, Salafists and Hamas are responsible for the violence in the Sinai much more so than Israel.

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sandvik

22-08-2011 07:48am

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Spiderman

So the Egyptian army and the police could not protect ONE building they were supposed to be guarding. And the Egyptians are proud of it....

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Ossama

21-08-2011 06:20pm

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Disappointment

This young man should not be hailed as a hero but as an idiot even should be arrested! Maintaining good relation with Israel is a key to the success of the new revolution. No time for bigotry, it is time to plan for Egypt's future!!!